30 weeknight date ideas

These 30 weeknight date ideas make scheduling quality connection with your honey simple!

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For many years, I fantasized about retiring early. I would visualize my life free from the constraints of work.

The pantry would be full of homemade relish and the kitchen would smell of freshly-baked sourdough loaves.

My skin would glow like a 20 year old’s after all those gua-sha facials and face yoga sessions.

The frequency of our marital intimacy would be the stuff of legends.

You get the idea.

Eventually, I came to understand that what was really needed was to change my career and my mindset. It was – gasp – possible to create a life I didn’t want to retire from.

If you’re thinking, Hey I just came here for the weeknight date ideas, let me explain.

If you’re living a life you want to retire from, it’s possible that you often feel like the week is nothing but work and that everything you would like to do gets shoved into the weekend.

Then when the weekend comes, instead of relaxing and enjoying these much-anticipated activities, it seems like a non-stop rush from one to the other.

Because these things are important to you, but you never fit them in or do them justice, you feel the sense of discomfort and disconnect that comes from not living in line with your values.

Date night is about valuing love and connection with our partner.

By looking for opportunities to live your values and get that date night happening, you can boost your happiness ten-fold. You can love your life now – not what you think it might look like in another 20 or 30 years.

First and foremost, that means flipping the switch on the idea that dates with your partner are for Friday and Saturday night only.

Instead, you look at any pocket of time as being suitable for a date.

Now obviously there are some constraints with weeknight dates – generally we need to be thinking of activities that are two to three hours or less, don’t require hours of travel and are easy to engage with.

These weeknight date ideas support you in your quest by showing you what’s possible – and if you want other examples, check out these morning date ideas, last-minute date ideas, and quick date ideas.

Weeknight date ideas at home

As I mentioned above, ease is key for weeknight date night. You want to reduce the friction as much as possible. Having your date at home is one simple way of doing this.

1. Delve into a date night box where the prep work is all done for you. Try Date night in for a fun, affordable option
2. Spend 30 minutes together working on a jigsaw puzzle. Get one of those super handy mats that enables you to roll it up so it doesn’t dominate your dining table
3. Ask each other questions for couples. You can go for playful, such as would you rather questions and favorite thing questions, or more intense with intimate questions and deep questions to ask your partner
4. Make a mocktail together and then sit down and enjoy it. You could work your way through these mocktail recipes
5. Craft a charcuterie board. If it’s seasonal, you could try these Valentine’s charcuterie boards, Halloween charcuterie boards or Christmas charcuterie boards. If not, here’s how to make the perfect charcuterie board
6. Plan something to look forward to. It can be as simple as going out to see a movie you’d both enjoy, or as complicated as planning a vacation
7. Make a bucket list. Much like the above, a bucket list helps give you clarity and purpose and gives you something to look forward to. You could do seasonal ones such as summer bucket lists or Christmas bucket lists, or make one for your life together
8. Play a card or board game. These date night games for two have some great ideas. In addition, Ben and I have been all over Sequence lately. The best part of the game is that it works as well with two players all the way up to twelve
9. Create a theme night for a country you would like to travel to. At its most basic, this can include appropriate food, a movie or show set in said country, and some trivia. You could get more inventive with costumes, decor and key phrases in the national language/s
10. Have a taco/ nacho / burrito off. There are so many different ways you can make tacos or nachos burritos. A fun weeknight date idea can be to come up with five or six variations of the food and then once a week, test out a different recipe. You might stumble across a new favorite! Our culinary repertoires have been broadened through this to now rotate a particular delish vegetarian nachos with the mince nachos we’ve eaten virtually every Friday for the last 11 years we’ve lived together! We also have tried the wonder that is jackfruit in vegan tacos. You can date and rate the recipe and make a decision on the winner at the end of the six week period
11. Smash out some s’mores. With this collection of s’mores recipes you can find something suitable even if it’s the middle of winter and you have no graham crackers
12. Watch a series of movies. This year, Ben and I are working through the James Bond movies. As well as the viewing experience, the cultural shifts, storylines and various Bonds also provide much fodder for conversation
13. Write a love letter to your partner in the future – talking about the things you’ve done together in your lives (and then craft a plan to make them happen
14. Get inventive between the sheets. Schedule some special time alone and focus on giving and receiving pleasure in a more focused and intentional way than your normal morning quickie
15. Channel your inner detective by solving a mystery like this:

Weeknight date ideas out and about

If you have enough energy to have your weekend date out of the house, yay you!

Now if you have the best of intentions here but never seem to pull it off, one simple strategy is to do your date straight after work – before you get home. Once those comfy pants are on, your chance of going out again are next to nothing.

1. Meet up at a local restaurant and grab a drink together when you both finish work. My husband and I both work in the CBD and we often catch the ferry home. One of our favorite things is when we spontaneously pop into the restaurant on the wharf and geta coffee or kombucha. It’s a special way of spending time together talking before we get home and get into the whole make dinner routine
2. Attend a trivia night at your local. These trivia nights are almost always on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays, no doubt to bring in a crowd on a less-popular evening. This is also a great group date activity
3. Grab takeout and head down to the beach and enjoy. No beach? A local park works just as well
4. Check out an interesting store. Just down from where Ben and I both work is a magazine store that stocks over 4000 magazines (and there’s a coffee shop in there too). A fun weeknight date could consist of browsing the shelves, selecting a couple of magazines to buy, and having a coffee together
5. Find a local board game café and play a game neither of you have played before
6. Look at what’s on in your community your local Facebook pages and select something that sounds novel. You might both discover a new interest or hobby
7. Go out for dessert. It’s quicker than a full meal. And it’s dessert. I don’t need to justify it
8. Have an after-work head or foot massage together
9. Visit your local aquarium and enjoy the quiet (here’s how to plan a fun aquarium date)
10. Visit your spot. You know, that spot that represent something key in your relationship. For us, it’s a bench seat in our old town where we used to walk to when we first met. You can also use substitutions – essentially we have a degree of fondness for any bench we see!
11. Go for a drive. While this may seem like the worst idea after a commute, you may feel more kindly towards it after a work from home day. Make like Sunday drive vibe.
12. Stay in a boutique hotel. Who says overnight luxury is the stuff of weekends? Enjoy a fun night in the big city
13. Do a yoga nidra class. This is a relaxing way to spend your evening before you go home and fall asleep. Unless you’re like my husband who fell asleep in every session. And then snored. Loudly.
14. Find a food truck and grab a quick but tasty meal together
15. Do a pretty woman date – go into your fav clothes store and try on all the clothes before purchasing what you want. Not going to lie, this is one of our fav dates to do!

You don’t need to save all the good stuff for the weekend – when half the time you’re recovering from the week that was. You can make every day a day to enjoy.

One way of doing this is to spend some quality time with your loved one and enjoy these weeknight date ideas.

You might also like: Date ideas for couples.